Should I disclose my polyamory to family and friends?

I’m a fairly boring person by your column’s standards in that I’ve always identified as a straight male into typical relationships. I’ve realized, after multiple long-term relationships that were unsatisfying, that monogamy isn’t for me. I would like to have a main, fulfilling, and committed relationship without limiting myself sexually or emotionally. I’ve struggled to remain faithful in the past and don’t want to cheat on anyone. I just want the rules to fit me so that I don’t have to be considered a cheater. Do you think this detail is something I should disclose to my family and friends? I don’t want to cause unnecessary awkwardness, but I also want people to love and accept me for who I am. I feel like this is an issue that activism isn’t addressing, and while polyamory seems to be more common today than in the past, I don’t see anyone who is publicly “out” as is the case with most of the queer community. I’m also not too deeply involved with that community, so maybe I just don’t see the activism happening.

> Pondering Over Life’s Yearnings

If you’re not seeing anyone who is poly and publicly out, POLY, then you’re not watching Showtime, which broadcast two seasons of Polyamory: Married & Dating, and you’re not paying attention to poly activists who are out—like Diana Adams, an attorney (dianaadamslaw.net/) who specializes in nontraditional family relationships.

“I applaud POLY for considering boldly coming out as polyamorous to his family and friends,” said Adams. “We need more people to come out in order to destigmatize polyamory. I came out as poly in the national media six years ago, and I built my career as an attorney advocate for queer and polyamorous families.”

Adams recognizes that not all poly folks can be out—some work for conservative employers, some could lose custody of their kids—but she believes that poly people who can be out, should be out. “For those of us who have the privilege to be out, I encourage us to speak our truth, which will support a cultural understanding of healthy relationships beyond monogamy—and, of course, help us find like-minded partners. In POLY’s case, I urge him to learn more about poly first. Poly has become a major subject of media attention, with profiles of out poly people published practically weekly. Link up with groups like Loving More (lovemore.com/) and Open Love NY (openloveny.com/), and follow people like me on Twitter (@dianaadamsesq), and he’ll get tuned in to the nationwide activism that’s happening. He’ll also get tapped into resources for creating successful poly relationships.”

And a word about those successful poly relationships: just like successful monogamous relationships, poly relationships have limits—both sexual and emotional. But instead of coming to an agreement with one partner about those limits, you have to hammer out agreements with two or more partners. So when you say you want to be poly so that the “rules fit you”, POLY, you better be using the plural you and not the singular. “Poly may not be easier to maintain than his monogamous relationships,” said Adams. “Poly works for emotional ninjas who possess tremendous emotional awareness and communication skills to create their own agreements with their partner(s). If POLY is ready for that level of effort, poly may work for him so well that he’ll want to tell the world.”

I’m a 27-year-old straight guy, and I’ve been in a monogamous relationship with an awesome girl for four years. Our sex life is pretty open and healthy, although it has lost some steam since the first couple of years—but that’s normal, right? For the last year or so, every time we have sex, I find myself fantasizing that I’m with someone else. A cute barista, an old fling, that MILF on the bus—in my mind, I’m fucking all kinds of people but never my girlfriend. Am I cheating on my partner? Is this a bad sign for our relationship? Should I admit this to my girlfriend? Should we try an open relationship?

> Mind Fucking Other Women

If fantasizing about fucking someone else while you’re fucking your partner is cheating, MFOW, then we’re all adulterers. It’s not a great sign that you’re doing it every time—you might wanna will yourself to focus on her at least every other time. As for telling her, well, that depends on how secure she is. If she’s realistic about the fact that you’re both attracted to other people, perhaps you can broach the subject—you may even be able to share your fantasies about others during sex. But that means you’ll have to hear about the baristas, flings, and DILFs who turn her on too, MFOW. Which raises another question: how secure are you?

In the wake of the killings at Isla Vista, and all the #YesAllWomen and #NotAllMen hashtag campaigns, I want a change in the dialogue. I want to hear the story of the man who warned a woman after he found out a friend was planning on drugging her, the story of the man who dropped a friend when he found out that his friend had assaulted his girlfriend, the story of the man who blamed the vindictive ex for posting private naked photos and not his female partner who was being victimized. I want to hear those stories. Can you ask your readers to send in stories that will give us women hope that the men who say they are on our side understand and are standing up for us in their everyday lives?

> One Sad Woman

The #YesAllWomen and #NotAllMen were not concurrent, complementary Twitter hashtag campaigns, OSW.

After Elliot Rodger decided to murder the women who had rejected him—women he felt entitled to, per his deranged and misogynistic “manifesto”—millions of women began tweeting under #YesAllWomen about the sexism, sexual violence, and misogyny they experience on a daily basis. When some men—but not all men (sorry)—began responding to those tweets with variations on “We’re not all like that!” the #NotAllMen hashtag was born, OSW, and it was a critique. As Phil Plait wrote at Slate: “Why is it not helpful to say ‘Not all men are like that’? For lots of reasons. For one, women know this. They already know not every man is a rapist, or a murderer, or violent. They don’t need you to tell them… Instead of being defensive and distracting from the topic at hand [misogyny, sexism, violence], try staying quiet for a while and actually listening to what the thousands upon thousands of women discussing this are saying.”

So I’m a little hesitant to invite men to share their not-all-like-that stories, OSW, because I agree with Plait: maybe men should shut up and listen? And then there’s this: it’s also entirely possible for a guy to do the right thing on one occasion—dropping a male friend who did something shitty to a female friend—and then immediately turn around and do something deeply shitty himself. Men shouldn’t be encouraged to think that one noble act frees them—frees all of us—from our collective responsibility as men to fight sexism and misogyny. (A quick note to my fellow faggots: what’s in fighting sexism and misogyny for us? Well, homophobes hate us because they perceive us to be like women—we’re effeminate, we’re cocksuckers, we’re penetrated. Homophobia is misogyny’s little brother, and a less misogynistic world is going to be a less homophobic world. So if you won’t fight sexism and misogyny for the sake of your moms, sisters, nieces, and female friends—and there’s something wrong with you if you won’t do it for them—then do it for yourselves, boys.)

But I’m running your letter, OSW, and inviting women—stick a cork in it, menz—to jump into the comment thread and share stories about men who’ve done the right thing. This is not meant to exonerate men of their responsibility to fight sexism and misogyny, or to minimize the problem because “not all men are like that,” but to give men who are reading concrete examples of what it looks like when a dude fights sexism and misogyny.

3 Comments

Mr A

Mr. Dee

It is all goes back to a thousand of years of our evolution and how nature set our brain.

Man is designed by nature to be polyamory. For it will only take a single man to reproduce entire humanity (if multiple females are available).

Woman is not designed to be polyamory. For if she chooses to get into relationship with a man it is only if she feels security and sees that the man is able to commit his resources to her. For if she gets pregnant, she needs someone to take care of her. She will therefore will not commit herself to a man who is seeing another woman. Even if you convince two women at the same time that you are truly in love with them (and it is only men that are able to love multiple partners at the same time), those women are not going to accept existence of each other. For each one of them will feel that commitment and resources are being taken away from her to another.

Psychology is very powerful thing. Understanding what men want and what women need helps building a healthy relationships.

Now my personal input:

I am sorry, but if you are not happy with your relationship and you chosen to go seek another relationship while being still in relationship. Well, this is being blind to the fact that you should have simply been honest to your partner that your relationship is not working out and it needs to be fixed or ended. Going Polyamory is not going to make anyone happy.

~100% of women reading this article found it to be disgusting.

~90% of men reading this article found it to be amusing (sexual fantasy coming to live). And the remaining >10% completely hated it (Yes, we all fantasize about another woman during sex with our wives that we been married for <15 years. But, it is still my wife and I die for her. I raise my son and teach him real family values, not what is being portrait on the tv show (which is scripted and all designed about creating a lot of viewers to make them money and not making this society healthy).

Someone Polyamorous

Jun 27, 2014 at 1:27am

To Mr.Dee: You would do better educating yourself on the topics of polyamory, human psychology and human ethology before you comment on something along these subjects. What 100% women and 100% men reading your comment find disgusting is your arrogance combined with your ignorance.